


That What Brought Him Back

by Linpatootie



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Dubious Consent, Dubious Consentacles, M/M, PWP, Tentacles, bit of blasphemy, no for real tentacles run for the hills, shades of Peter / everyone in the novels ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-12
Updated: 2014-07-12
Packaged: 2018-02-08 14:17:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1944330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Linpatootie/pseuds/Linpatootie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter lets his curiosity get the better of him and finds out what’s hidden behind the mysterious metal door in the Folly basement. It might be a bit more than he bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That What Brought Him Back

**Author's Note:**

> I dedicate this to my two favourite people, the delightful flutteringazure and bifurism, who have been gently attempting to coax me into writing a dubious consentacles fic for months. Here you go, ladies, with all the love present in my hell-bound little black heart <3
> 
> and, as usual, big thanks to flutteringazure for the betaread <3 <3

He wasn't supposed to approach the door. Nightingale had expressly forbidden him to, but what was a young constable to do when faced with a mysterious door and a mentor who had, so far, refused to tell him what was behind it?

"It's nothing to worry yourself about at this point of your apprenticeship," Nightingale had said in a tone of voice that told Peter that further inquiries would not be appreciated, "so just keep away from it."

It wasn’t entirely fair, all things considered. All right, maybe they had a lot on their plates at the moment, maybe there were bigger things to worry about, maybe Peter needed to just be a good little copper and accept his orders. But Nightingale couldn’t dangle something as deeply intriguing as a magical steel door in Peter’s face and just expect him to keep away from it, could he?

Furthermore, Nightingale wasn't in the Folly now, gone off on some errand Peter had missed entirely, and the door called to him like a good, gooey, chocolate cake. So he’d snuck down the back stairs, past the firing range and the armoury, down a brick-lined corridor so funky he felt he might wind up with syphilis from just walking down it, and ended up, once again, in front of what perhaps might have been the greatest mystery he’d faced in his life. Well, so far.

The metal was old, but in good condition. Peter traced his fingers along the symbols carved into it, graceful spirals and circles, almost expecting the metal to perhaps feel alive under his fingertips. Warm, maybe, or buzzing, something of the like, but nope. It was cold and dead, just as you'd expect a great big slab of bulletproof metal to be.

It didn't have a handle.

Peter sighed, stretching his arms over his head. He was bursting with curiosity. Had there been a lock, he was ashamed to admit he'd have probably picked it. In and out, just a peek, Nightingale would never have found out... unless he had the thing rigged with some magical burglar alarm, but Peter highly doubted that would be the case.

There were so many options as to what the door might hold. A magical weapon? A mystical portal? A secret S&M dungeon? Every new option his oh so active imagination threw at him just made him more keen. It didn’t help that the place appeared so positively ramshackle and untidy. Whatever was behind that door, it had been put there and promptly abandoned a long time ago. Peter didn’t think Nightingale came here often, yet whatever was hidden there was important enough for it to be one of the first things he asked Peter to check once they had been compromised.

A man didn’t do that for a secret porn stash, was all.

No handle, no lock, no mat where a key might be conveniently stashed, no Ikea-style instructions. Just a thick slab of metal, and no means of getting through. There had to be a way, of course. A spell, probably. Literally a magic word, something that would cause the door to creak forebodingly as it slowly swung open, Hollywood-style.

Or so Peter assumed. Perhaps it would slide open with a pleasant zoom like the glass doors down at Tesco. You never knew.

He placed both palms up against the door, and leaned his forehead to the cool metal for good measure. "Speak friend and enter," he mumbled helplessly. He half wondered if he was going to have to cut his hand and smear blood all over it, and it kind of worried him to realise he totally would, if that's what it took. He had to get in there. He couldn’t quite put his finger on why, but he seriously, seriously had to.

_I'm not your friend._

The voice was smooth and even, and simply presented itself between his ears like an eloquently formed thought in someone else’s tongue.

"What the fuck," Peter gibbered, jumping back from the door like a startled deer.

Nothing. Silence, and darkness, and an unassuming metal door.

Peter stared at the door for a tense few seconds, listening closely, but all that remained was the quiet. He considered backing away. He considered running the fuck upstairs and watching some telly. He considered moving to Guam and taking up a career herding sheep.

He stepped forward, placed both hands against the door again, and slowly, carefully, pressed his forehead back to the door.

_Well, that didn't take you long to figure out. Good for you._

The voice was deep and echo-y, pretty much exactly what one might expect a voice speaking to you telepathically would sound like. Peter didn’t think this was a very good sign, but, hey, there was a great big slab of metal between him and whatever was producing it. He wasn’t too worried.

"Who the hell are you?" Peter said, "and how the hell are you talking to me through a *door*?"

_I am capable of many things. I am known as many things, too. But first, what's your name, young man? You’re the one who showed up at my door, after all._

"Peter."

His name just tumbled past his lips, unthinkingly. It was as if he hadn't even ordered his mouth to speak, like whatever was talking to him had just pulled it out right from between his teeth.

Maybe he should rethink his position on how much that door would keep him safe.

_Peter. Good, strong name, that. Almost as old as mine._ The creature laughed, though not unpleasantly. It sounded oddly friendly, for something imprisoned deep within the home of English magic. _My name, dear Peter, is Asmodai. You have no idea how thrilled I am to meet you. I haven't met new people in decades and decades._

The name should mean something to him, Peter thought, but it just wouldn't come to him why. His vast mental library of pop culture references failed him, and even all the things he'd learned from Nightingale so far didn't present him with a ready-made answer. Still, the name was familiar, as if it was somehow engraved on his frontal lobe that this, right here, was a big fucking deal.

"Why are you behind a door?" he asked.

_Because the English wizardry worries about what will happen if I'm not._

"Bloody right we do," Peter muttered. “How long have you been here? Do you know my governor?”

_Governor?_

Peter sighed briefly. Of course. “My master.”

_The Nightingale, yes? Oh, I know him... I know him well. It’s his touch that keeps me locked in here, these days. Always a new keeper, one after the other. I imagine you might be the next. Oh, dear boy, I cannot wait to get to know you better._

There was an innuendo in there, bright as day. Peter could actually *feel* it too, as if the voice inside his head had somehow managed to start caressing the insides of his thighs. Whatever the thing was, it was *hitting on him*.

He pulled back, forehead no longer to the door, and the connection was lost instantly. Odd, how that worked. It was probably a bad idea, but he had to test it just once more, to be sure. He placed his forehead back to the steel.

_Now don’t be such a spoilsport, Peter_ , Asmodai said, all in good nature. _I haven’t gotten to talk to anyone in ages. Especially not someone as young and sweet as yourself._

“I’m not used to conversing telepathically with people,” Peter said. “Assuming that that is what you are doing.”

_In a matter of speaking. You do not know who I am, do you?_

“Not as such, no. Should I?”

_Yes. Your education is lacking. I am of the nine hells, boy. But fear not. We tend to make better conversationalists than those from the upper regions, and all. Just ask the Nightingale._ He, or at least Peter assumed Asmodai to be a he, snorted out a laugh.

“I doubt you’re engaging me right now just to have chat, though.”

_Oh, perhaps not,_ Asmodai said, and his voice was a deep, titillating purr inside Peter’s mind. _Maybe you ought to open that door and find out. I’m excellent company to keep, I assure you._

That was about all Peter could take. He stepped back from the door abruptly, as if he had to physically tear himself away from it. He was uncomfortably warm, a bit sweaty, and, he was astonished to admit, just about hovering on the edge of arousal.

That thing had done that to him. That thing had done that to him through several inches of face-hardened battleship steel.

Peter shuddered to think what it would be able to do without such a barrier. Shaking his head, he turned and got the hell out of there.

***

He was still going to look it up, of course. Asmodai, also known as Asmodeus or Ashmedai, was apparently either a king of demons, or a prince of hell. Sources didn't really agree on whatever royal title he might boast, to be honest, but either way Peter was impressed.

According to Binsfeld's classification of demons, written in the lively year of 1589, there were seven such princes of hell, each of them representing a deadly sin. Entirely unsurprising, Asmodeus was the demon of lust. That explained why he'd been so overtly putting the moves on him, at least, and possibly even explained why Peter had felt so damn tempted to just go for it.

He tried not to dwell on why Nightingale kept a lust demon locked up in the basement, though. Certain things were best left unexplored.

Many sources described Asmodai as a handsome, well-mannered and all-round engaging bloke, which was a bit of a surprising description for an Old Testament baddie. Then again, many colourful pictures had him down as a three-headed sort of deal, complete with uncanny animal parts and claws. Peter could only wonder.

The idea of him sitting down there, behind that metal door, burned. Peter wished he could say it didn't, but it did. He'd always been driven by curiosity, and while he had, in fact, figured out what exactly it was behind that door, it called up so many more questions it was driving him mad.

Why was Asmodai there? How long had he been there? What would happen if he got out? Or a worse question still - what would happen if Peter got in? Peter had never been confronted with an actual demon before, and as far as those went, this one was a pretty big deal. What was it demons were, exactly, anyway? Fallen angels? Cause that came with a whole slew of theological implications Peter wasn't sure he could wrap his brain around at all.

A little voice in his head, sounding so much like Lesley it made him right miserable for a bit, told him that things like accidentally releasing a demon was what made Apocalypses happen in books. He shushed that voice by kindly reminding it he wasn't actually *in* a book, and he didn't find any references to Asmodai being a harbinger of Armageddon or such at all. He supposed the worst thing that could happen was that Asmodai would eat him alive, and while it wasn't a particularly pleasant scenario, he found himself seriously considering those odds.

He supposed he could've just asked Nightingale, but didn't think that would get him so far. On top of that, the whole thing didn't feel like something to share with Nightingale, at all. It had a bit of a furtive air to it, like this was a little secret shared between him and Asmodai. He couldn't quite pinpoint why it felt that way. He could only guess that Asmodai was actually *making* it feel that way, was manipulating him into feeling like the two of them were having a bloody love affair, and that inferred the kind of mind control powers he really, really probably ought to talk to Nightingale about.

The door called to him, incessantly. It was constantly there in the back of his mind, imprinted on his eyelids when he closed his eyes, like a dull taste of metal lingering on everything he ate. He even dreamed about it, on more than one occasion, finding himself standing at the door, watching it swing slowly open to reveal nothing but a big, bright grin surrounded by pitch darkness.

In the end, it was all rather amazing he managed to go almost five full days without going back down. Five days which he spent mostly distracted, sure, but five days still, up until Nightingale announced he was heading out to meet Postmartin somewhere and Peter found himself alone, in the library, with Molly nowhere to be found.

He wouldn't say he ran, but he definitely went down the back stairs at something of a decisive trot.

He continued on in a straight line down the corridor, hands outstretched, and bumped his forehead to the door with enough force for it to hurt.

“Damn you,” he said.

_Couldn't quite stay away?_

"Are you doing that? Making me want to come here?"

_Yes, obviously. You cannot just come here, give me a taste, and not come back, you know._

"How?!"

_Well, you touched my door. That leaves a certain impression. It fades after a while, I must admit, but I tend to... linger. I must say, my dear, that I am impressed you lasted this long. I could name a fair few wizards who didn't even make it through a whole day. You must be quite headstrong, to make it to five._

“Yeah, I'm a marvel. I googled you, you know."

_I don't know what that means. It sounds pleasurable. Is it?_

"I looked you up..." He almost added 'on the internet', but that wasn't going to mean much more to this thing, was it? "You're a demon. Biblical and everything."

Asmodai snorted, which was a bit of an odd thing to encounter whilst conversing telepathically. _Books. Books get so many things wrong. Especially that one book, yes. I am nothing like what pen and paper have made me out to be._

That didn't help Peter's curiosity one lick. He rather wished the door had been made of bulletproof glass, rather than metal, but back when the door had been constructed that option probably wasn't available yet.

Also, he wasn't in a zoo, obviously. There were probably folks out there who'd consider putting a demon in a fish tank so you might ogle it a bit impolite.

"Why does Nightingale not want me to know you're here?" he asked.

_I'm a demon, precious. Surely you can think of a whole list of reasons why the good man wouldn't want his beloved apprentice near a demon. If not, he may have vastly overestimated your abilities._

"You're pretty bloody sassy for a bimillennial."

_I've been stuck here on my own for a long time. What else have I to do but work on my sass?_

Peter laughed. Asmodai appreciated that, he could feel it. He supposed he hadn't made anyone laugh in quite a while. The books had called him engaging, and Peter found himself agreeing. He couldn't tell if it was genuine or if that, too, was simply something Asmodai was putting in his head. He *liked* the guy, and Asmodai knew he did, too.

“What do you look like?” he asked. Asmodai went quiet for a while, and Peter could feel his grin, like teeth already gnawing on his bones.

_Why don't you come in, and see for yourself?_

“How stupid do you think I am?”

_Oh, quite stupid, actually, but don’t take that personally. Prerogative of the young, and all. You're allowed your folly, and I do love to benefit from it. I won't hurt you, you know. Not in any way you'll protest, that is._

Right. Of course.

_Just open the door, Peter. It's been so very, very long since I've had someone here. I'll make it worth your while._

His voice was a deep purr resounding in Peter's head, his skin, humming all the way down to his balls. He didn't realise he'd pressed himself entirely against the door until he spoke and his lips touched the metal.

“I don't know how to open the door.”

_Yes, you do. You wizardly types all do. Just find the handle._

Asmodai was whispering now, his words practically caressing the inside of Peter's skull. It was, in an intensely creepy way, the most erotic thing Peter had ever experienced. He was practically humping the damn door, and couldn't even find it within himself to feel embarrassed about it.

Find the handle, though. Despite having closed his eyes he could still see the door, that big metal rectangle, engraved so gracefully. In his mind's eye he traced those spirals with his fingertips, felt the cold metal, whispered random Latin to it in hopes of finding the right words. He was growing desperate for it, in a way that whatever part of him still remained rational at this point was screaming at him for. Like a drowning man stuck under ice, looking for a weak spot to break on through, he was this close to just trying to bust down the door with whatever means available to him when he saw it.

There was a handle.

There wasn't a handle, but there *was* a handle, and he could reach and simply turn it. It wasn't even ornate or something like that, it was just there, and as he turned it he was deeply aware of his hand being empty and the gesture taking place mid-air.

The door swung open, and Asmodai laughed.

Behind the door was nothing. It was, for a moment, the biggest disappointment of Peter's life. Darkness, endless darkness, a slightly humid black that stretched out as far as Peter could see. The room was, hysterically, bigger on the inside, and as Peter stepped past the door he felt oddly like he'd stepped into some kind of chasm between dimensions, an endless space created for keeping an endless evil.

It was quiet inside his mind too, and Peter wondered briefly if getting him to open the door was as far as Asmodai's array of tricks stretched.

Then Asmodai came out of the dark, and Peter understood how wrong he'd been.

He was attractive, if Peter could call Asmodai a ‘he’ at all. Peter wasn't even sure that what he was looking at was actually a face, or even what it was that made him call it attractive in the first place. He just knew that Asmodai was appealing, much in the same way jumping off a cliff was appealing to anyone stood on the edge of it. A pull, like gravity, like magnetism, like the intense urge to walk into a lovingly outstretched knife.

Asmodai smiled a devastating smile of straight white teeth, had two eyes as blue as deep winter ice in a pitch black, ancient face, and Peter's prick was hard as rock within his slacks.

Well, damn.

_There you are, then. Oh, you're even lovelier than I imagined. Where are you from? The shores of Algeria, perhaps, some lost Carthaginian corner?_

“Kentish Town,” Peter mumbled, his feet still shuffling slowly forward. Asmodai defied all description – he was large, but he wasn't large, he looked vaguely human if you looked at him head-on, but looked everything but from the corner of Peter's eyes. Occasionally there were four limbs, but then there would be flashes of countless ones. His image flickered, vibrated, like it was giving off an intense heat. The only thing that remained constant were those eyes, and that smile, that bright, bright smile, with more teeth in it than strictly necessary.

_Never heard of it. No matter. How happy I am to see you, my lovely, lovely Peter. Such an exotic treat to wander past my door._

“Speaking of that, the door opened suspiciously easily,” Peter said. “Why don't you just get out, if you know how to make that happen?”

_The door isn't to keep me in,_ Asmodai whispered his voice somehow right next to Peter's ear even if Asmodai was still several yards away, _the Nightingale has far more eloquent means in place for that._

"Then what's the door for?" Peter asked breathlessly, but he already knew the answer. Asmodai knew he did too, and didn't even bother to reply.

The door wasn't there to keep Asmodai in. The door was there to keep people out.

And Peter had blindly allowed himself to be seduced right past it.

“Oh God,” he said. He told himself to step back. He told himself the door was right behind him, that it wasn't even shut, that it would take at most three steps to get back out. He could close it, run off, never come back.

His legs wouldn't move. Sweat prickled between his shoulder blades, at his temples, and his heart beat so loudly he could taste the thump of it on his tongue.

He'd never wanted to fuck as badly in his life, and knew it had the potential of coming at a horrible price.

Asmodai grinned a bright, bright grin surrounded by darkness, and thick, black tendrils shot forth from the darkness of him and wrapped around Peter with an insistent sort of love.

Peter didn't fight as he was dragged deeper into the endless void of Asmodai's chamber.

The tentacles – fuck, actual *tentacles*, like he was in some kind of bloody hentai – were pleasantly warm, and slightly sticky as they snaked around his arms and legs.

_There you are,_ Asmodai said, still inside Peter's head, but Peter was now close enough to feel Asmodai's hot breath across his face as he spoke regardless. _Now don't worry, my dear heart... I'll take good care of you._

Asmodai kissed him, and Peter found himself thinking that as far as ways to go went, this one wasn't too bad. His mouth covered Peter's almost entirely, his teeth were sharp on Peter's lips, and Peter opened his mouth to a tongue so hot he thought it might scald him.

Peter didn't realise he was being undressed until he felt those tentacles, a countless number of them, snake across his naked skin. He had no idea what had happened to his clothes and assumed they might have been gently ripped off, but it was entirely possible they'd been simply dissolved, disappeared, magicked right off his trembling body. The tentacles slicked over his arms and legs, caressed his back and his chest, leaving traces of something wet and slippery. Asmodai was eager, very eager, roving over his body with the urgency found exactly in those who hadn't touched someone in decades, and his need was so apparent Peter could taste it, right there on that tongue still so insistent inside his mouth.

He shook with it, and Asmodai laughed, and a warm, slick tendril wrapped around Peter's cock. He whimpered and sobbed, convulsing into the touch, and it took Asmodai's long, hot tongue to lap across his neck for Peter to catch up with it that he'd stopped kissing him.

“Please,” Peter said, though he couldn't really say what he was begging for. His life? For release? For Asmodai to kindly not stop stroking his cock like that?

_Patience_ , Asmodai said softly. _We have more time than you will ever know_.

“Stop,” Peter managed, but didn't mean at all. It was the part of him still gunning for survival that made him say that, but with every touch he felt more and more of him give into it. Asmodai's tentacles were everywhere, tracing patterns down his spine, sliding up and down the insides of his thighs, wrapped loosely around his knees to tug his legs apart. One thick, slippery tentacle was still wrapped around his cock, moving up and down, simulating the most intense blow job he'd ever had, and another one caressed his balls and stroked his perineum.

_I can make you see anything you'd want,_ Asmodai whispered. _I want to drive you mad. That's what I do, you know. That's what feeds me._

That, Peter had already figured out. Of course a lust demon would feed on lust. Of course a lust demon would strive to inspire the most of it he could in a person. Asmodai didn't seem to derive any kind of sexual pleasure from what he was doing to Peter himself, but why should he? This wasn't a man. There was no reason he would react to this act in the way a man would.

The sudden very clear image of Beverly Brooke sucking on his cock like it was a most delicious treat was unexpected, though. It was vivid, and Peter could see her beautiful, full lips wrapped around the head of his prick, her cheeks hollowed in as she sucked. He knew it was fake, he knew that what he felt were still Asmodai's tentacles, but by God was it a convincing illusion.

It was also, shockingly, very wrong. “No,” he groaned. “Fuck. Stop that.”

_Not good? Something else?_

Like flicking through a slideshow, Asmodai seemed to pluck right from Peter's memories any face he might conceivably fancy around his cock. It was like a greatest hits compilation of Peter's most private wank fantasies, and he was left wondering if Asmodai, being the demon of lust and all, somehow had access to those.

Beverly morphed, shamefully so, into her mother, the goddess of the Thames herself sucking on his prick like it was going out of style. She then, in her turn, changed right into Simone, which was oddly painful, and into Lady Tyburn, briefly, before doing a full 180 and turning into Oberon. That was a fascinating one, right there, and Asmodai sensed that Peter felt that way too, lingering just a bit longer there. Oberon, then, became Zachary Palmer, looking irresistibly mischievous.

“Christ,” Peter gasped.

Zach changed into Lesley May, the old Lesley May, her beautiful face as it had been, her blond hair tumbling down her face. He fancied he could actually feel it, tickling his groin and thighs, and he groaned. Lesley then, too, disappeared, and turned into Dr Walid, ever so briefly, before becoming Molly, red lips in a pale face, sliding his cock in and out of her mouth.

“That's terrifying,” Peter said, entirely too preoccupied with how sharp those teeth were that his cock was not actually sliding past, and Asmodai laughed.

_You don't like it? Because I find some white-hot bits of desire for her hidden in your mind, boy. Understandable, of course. We usually want to fuck that which might kill us. Why, just look at you here, so prone before me. But, if this isn't for you, then how about this one..._

Peter already knew what Asmodai was going to do before he did it, and he knew it was going to be the end of him. Nightingale, sitting on his knees before him in one of those gorgeous bespoke suits of his, licking Peter’s prick and looking up at him with an intensity that made Peter bloody nervous.

“Oh, fuck,” Peter gibbered, desire rocketing through him, and Asmodai groaning in his turn as it did.

_Oh, I hit a nerve with that one. Good. Very good. You're delightful._

The tentacle caressing his perineum moved further south, circled his arse, and Peter didn't protest as it pushed inside of him. He wasn't entirely inexperienced, but this was more than he'd dealt with before. Still, it was slick, and not too thick, and the burn of it was entirely drowned out by the bursts of pleasure from all the other touches Asmodai was delivering to him.

The Nightingale in his mind's eye sucked, and licked, and Peter hung suspended in mid-air as Asmodai fucked him relentlessly.

A tentacle slipped past his opened lips and Peter sucked on it in a lust-giddy reflex. It was salty and slightly bitter, thrusting in and out his mouth in the same rhythm the other tentacle thrust in and out his arse. That one was going in deeply, getting thicker as it did, and was prehensile enough to never ease up on rubbing past his prostate.

Peter made sounds he'd never caught himself making before, sucking on a tentacle like his life depended on it.

_Yes. Good. Give me more. I need more._

A second tentacle slithered up his arse, and the one in his mouth went in so deeply he could feel it tickle at the back of his throat. They were getting increasingly slippery too, warm, thick moisture dripping down Peter's chin and thighs. He didn't even care. His entire world was physical pleasure, his heart roaring between his ears. The muscles in his thighs trembled as strong, thick tendrils still kept his knees wide apart, and his cock pulsed in Asmodai's grasp.

The Nightingale illusion trembled and wavered, and Peter whimpered for it not to leave him. He was entirely too far gone to still care about this, his pleas coming out garbled, and Asmodai laughed hoarsely. Peter could feel him all around, inside, outside, in his mind and in his body, and didn’t even care that this would be the last thing he’d ever feel.

His orgasm was more intense than any he'd experienced before. It was heart and soul, a violent collision of inside and out, and he screamed as Asmodai yanked the tentacle from his mouth. He threw his head back, his body convulsing, and Asmodai's tentacles shuddered as he ejaculated all over them.

For a stretching moment, there was nothing but a humming in his ears and Asmodai's tentacles trembling violently in and around him. Then Asmodai roared, once, loudly, inhumanly, and Peter felt himself slowly lowered to the ground. The tentacles slipped out of him, unwrapped from around his limbs, and dragged away into the dark.

Peter sat, a sorry heap of humanity, and once he regained himself realised one very important thing - *he was still alive*.

It took him a moment more to come back to himself enough to pay attention to his surroundings. He could hear Asmodai, panting with obvious satisfaction. By his side he found, to his surprise, his clothes, still whole, apparently not quite ripped off, though he wouldn't for the life of him be able to explain how Asmodai had gotten him out of them.

With trembling hands, his body still sticky with his own cum and whatever the slippery substance Asmodai's tentacles had left behind was, he put his clothes back on. Shame licked at him, but he didn't quite allow it in.

“I thought you were going to kill me,” he said, tugging his shirt over his head.

_Kill you? What fun would it be to kill you? I'd rather let you live, even if it's just to see you come running back to me for seconds._

Peter scrambled up to his feet, nearly toppling over as he did. He stared off into the darkness, to where he knew Asmodai was. “Seconds?”

_Of course. Trust me, my boy, you will come back for more. You lot always do._

He laughed, and flashed that blinding white grin in the darkness, and then he was gone. Peter couldn't tell where he'd gone, knew he was still in the void that made up the room below the Folly, but felt oddly alone regardless.

His arms and legs still trembling, his blood still roaring between his ears, Peter stepped out the room, closed the door and ran up into the Folly proper. He went straight for the bathroom, and spent the next hour sitting in a hot bath, staring at dozens of bruises that looked suspiciously like hickeys blossoming across his body.

***

Nightingale could tell something was off. It was annoying that he could, that apparently he'd gotten to know Peter well enough by now that he could sense he'd done something Nightingale would disapprove of, and he kept giving him these sideways glances that Peter could only squirm under.

Peter prayed to every deity he could think of for Nightingale to never find out he'd been coaxed into a spectacular orgasm by a lust demon who had fed him mental pictures of Nightingale sucking his cock. It was all Peter could think of as he hurried through the atrium, towards the mundane library, and out from under Nightingale’s gaze. He was still sore in the most creative of places, and did his best to not let any of it show.

“Peter,” Nightingale called out. “You're staying away from that door, like I told you, I take it?”

Damn that man and his intuition. Peter rubbed absently at the back of his neck, where his shirt just about covered a long, persistent hickey, and nodded.

“Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”

Nightingale gave him a long look, and Peter knew that Nightingale knew exactly how much Peter had not stayed away from that door and, furthermore, that Nightingale knew exactly what sort of thing had taken place behind it.

With a jolt that took place just below his belly button, Peter understood Nightingale had come to the Folly as a young man, too. He understood Nightingale had lived atop Asmodai for easily seventy years, and was bound to know exactly, in excruciating, intimate detail, what Asmodai was capable of.

Asmodai had remarked he knew Nightingale well, after all.

"I take it you know what they say about cats and curiosity, Peter?" Nightingale said darkly.

Peter didn't answer right away. He looked at the floor, let his gaze drift as memories assaulted him, then raised his head and looked Nightingale in the eye. "I do," he said, "but I think you know how the rest of that saying goes, sir."

Nightingale's face flushed, his mouth tightening. Peter nodded at him, once, then turned and continued on to the library.

**Author's Note:**

> (curiosity killed the cat, but, satisfaction brought him back...)


End file.
